Anglers bringing in bigger catches during festival fishing
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ALPENA -- The fish are getting bigger at this year's Michigan Brown Trout Festival.
Through the first several days of fishing, the top catches on the leaderboard have outweighed fish from last year in several categories.
The leading lake trout and salmon are 3.75 pounds and 1.95 pounds heavier than last year, respectively. As of Tuesday night, Joe Mellon's salmon topped the board at 28.4 pounds and Mike Tanner topped the lake trout leaders with a 26-pound catch.
The biggest fish in both of those categories last year were 26.45 pounds and 22.25 pounds, respectively.
This year's leading steelhead (12.7 pounds) also tops last year's top catch (12.3 pounds), but this year's leading walleye and brown trout are still below last year's highs.
Ernie Butterfield, a volunteer that weighs the fish -- going by the title 'Fish Doctor 2' -- said last year's weights may have been topped, but there's still more fish to be weighed for the Truly Ladies Classic on Thursday.
"There's a lot of bigger fish than there were last year," Butterfield said. "And when they bring the coolers and the ladies bring their coolers in they're usually a heap -- really nice fish."
Officials and the tournament's current brown trout leader, Tim Wieczorkowski, said a storm that's predicted to arrive within the next day should stir the fish up -- possibly resulting in better and bigger catches.
"Sometimes storms activate the fish," Wieczorkowski said. "When the water starts to stabilize and a storm is coming, it should activate some of the brown [trout].
"You got to have the fish to be able to fish them and you got to have the weather. Brown [trout] are very finicky fish and cold water shuts them right down."